Soft through my window it comes like the fanning of pinions angelic,Whispering to cease from myself, and look out on the infiniteskies-
Out on the orb-studded night, and the crescent effulgence of Dian;Out on the far-gleaming star-dust that marks where the angels have trod;Out on the gem-pointed Cross, and the glittering pomp of Orion,Flaming in measureless azure, the coronal jewels of God.
James Brunton Stephens
General Notes.-The lines quoted are dactyllic (think of the words tremulous, whispering, infinite, measureless, coronal). The passage is from Convict Once. A woman looks forth into the night. Dian is Diana, the moon goddess. The Cross every child knows, Orion, the mighty hunter, has a constellation of which certain stars resemble a saucepan. Are the stars set in measureless azure, or is the background black? Find out foryourselves. Make a list of poetical quotations referring to the stars, and write any star-legend that you know.
Lesson 3
MY COUNTRY
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes, Of ordered woods and gardens,Is running in your veins; Strong love of grey-blue distance,Brown streams, and soft, dim skies,- I know, but cannot share it;My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains, Of rugged mountain ranges,Of droughts and flooding rains;
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty, and her terror- The wide brown land for me!
The stark, white, ring-barked forests, All tragic to the moon,The sapphire-misted mountains, The hot, gold hush of noon;Green tangle of the brushes, Where lithe lianas coil,And orchids deck the tree-tops, And ferns the warm, dark soil.
Drawn by W. S. Wemyss.J
Far Inland
Core of my heart, my country, Her pitiless blue sky,When, sick at heart, around us We see the cattle die;But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless againThe drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country, Land of the rainbow gold,For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold. Over the thirsty paddocks,Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country, A wilful, lavish land-All you who have not loved her, You will not understand-Though earth holds many splendours, Wherever I may die,I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Dorothea Mackellar
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath saidThis is my own, my native land;
Whose heart hath ne"er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned,From wandering on a foreign strand?
Author.-Dorothea Mackellar was born at Rose Bay, Sydney. She is a daughter of the late Honourable Sir Charles Mackellar, K.C.M.G. Her published books include The Closed Door, The Witch Maid and Other Verses, Dream Harbour, Fancy Dress, Outlaws" Luck (a novel).
General.-When Cromwell was about to have his portrait painted, he insisted that his face should be shown " with the warts on. " Miss Mackellar tries to limn the " beauty " and the "terror " of Australia. Pick out the phrases that show the pleasant aspeets and those that show the unpleasant aspects. Are there aspects the authoress has not mentioned? Which is the choicest phrase? To whom is the poem addressed? Tran- scribe the first stanza and mark the beats. Is the poem earnest or flippant? What feeling pervades it? Tell in your own words what are the leading thoughts, and what are the pictures presented. Make a simple diagram to show the stressed syllables in a stanza : here is the first line.
What does the authoress mean by " rainbow gold, " "opal-hearted "? Could you describe your own district in the style of Miss Mackellar?
Lesson 4
SUNRISE IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
One afternoon, they were sitting on the seat that looks down into Govett"s Leap-the great, mysterious valley that the highest rocks of the mountains guard. It was all in shadow; the sun had moved across to the west, and was setting there, away on the other side of the railway line. The tremendous trees and ferns at the bottom of the Leap were a mass of dark shadow. There was no light in the sky behind, and none for the leaping waterfall on the right to catch and weave into its curves and waves.
The five girls were all silent. Their eyes, with the dreams of youth in them, were gazing out into the great, silent stretches of mountains rolling back against the sky.
"Oh, to see this place with the sun behind it! " cried Mabel, suddenly. "If we could only see the sun rise there beyond those great, dark boulders, and make all the sky turn red. That"s what it wants-colour behind it. By the time we get down here in the day-time, the sun has gone away from it, and it"s all dull and heavy- looking. "After tea that night they got their mother into her own bedroom, shut the door mysteriously, and told her what they wanted to do-to see the sun rise at the Leap. They kept their voices down, for fear Aubert might be hiding somewhere.
"To see the sun rise? " said the mother. "You will have to get up very early for that. ""Oh, but we can wake ourselves, " said Lennie; "and we won"t make a noise. "" You will all be very careful? "
" Oh, mother, of course we will. "
At that the mother said yes; she thought that they might go.
So that same night most secret preparations went on in the kitchen; the billy was packed with tea, sugar, and a little bottle of milk. Mabel cut sandwiches of bread and butter and hard- boiled eggs, and wrapped them in a damp cloth, and made them into a parcel, all ready for the morning. Lennie polished the glass of the lantern, and put a new candle in it.
Then they borrowed the alarm clock from Emma, set it for three, and went quietly to bed, an hour before their usual time.
Mabel and Lennie had been in bed about half an hour, but had not succeeded in going to sleep, when they heard their door-handle turn gently, and saw, through the dark, a white figure at their bedside.
It was Brenda.